


Broken Birds

by Anonymous



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Pedophile, Character Study, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Dark, Father/Son Incest, M/M, POV Bruce Wayne, Sexual Content is only Alluded Too, Suicidal Thoughts, Unreliable Narrator, very dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:28:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22537783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A Bruce-focused character study exploring something often alluded to in fic: what if Bruce Waynewasactually attracted to young boys? A tragedy, although primarily for the effect it has on the boys, rather than how it affects Bruce himself.
Relationships: Bruce Wayne & Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne/Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd/Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 19
Kudos: 243
Collections: Anonymous





	Broken Birds

When Bruce is just a boy, he tells his mother that he likes Thomas. Thomas Elliot is his best friend, after all, and his mother laughs it off and tells him she'll arrange another play date for the two of them. Bruce feels like that's wrong, but he doesn't ask any more questions, and his mother dies before she can understand what he meant.

When Bruce is fourteen, his crush on his younger schoolmates is normal. When he is sixteen, his interest in those years younger than him is slightly unusual, but nothing extreme.

When Bruce is eighteen, he's old enough to recognize that his interest in those that anyone else would consider children is no longer acceptable or something that could be laughed off. He dates women because it's expected, but can't move past his parents death, and restless and agitated he chooses to leave Gotham entirely.

He focuses on other things. In far off monasteries and exotic locales, he is surrounded by adults. He doesn't have to think about other things, and relationships are the farthest thing from his mind. It's ideal, but it can't last forever. Eventually, he returns to Gotham and tries to make something of himself. He forgets, if only for a while, that something is wrong with him. He allows himself to live an actual life. He tells himself that he is making Gotham better as he goes out into the city at night, saving lives and stopping criminals.

If Batman is a little bit harder than he needs to be on those who would hurt children, it isn't something anyone else would notice.

Things go off the rails when he's almost thirty. He goes to the circus to see a show and instead witnesses a tragic death. There's a boy there, crying, and for a moment Bruce only wants to make things better for him.

He takes the boy in and brings him home, telling himself that he's doing it purely out of kindness. Dick Grayson has just lost everything, and Bruce wants to make it better. He wants the boy to have a home. He wants him to feel safe.

He tells himself that over and over until even he believes it.

And for a time, that's all there is to it. Dick is his family. He can't take the place of Dick's parents, but he can still be there for him, and that's all that needs to be done.

But things begin to slip when Dick learns about Batman. When he learns the truth, he's insistent that he wants to help, even as Bruce pushes him away. It's risky, he points out. There's danger, he says. But it doesn't matter, because Dick won't take no for an answer, and Bruce has never been able to deny him anything.

Dick picks out a leotard that shows his legs, and Bruce makes a weak attempt to convince him to wear something else. He doesn't want to, and in the end Dick Grayson goes out into the city as Robin, Boy Wonder.

More than anything else, it's that which seals Bruce's fate. Looking back, he knows he should never have allowed it. Taking Dick in was one thing. Letting him put himself at risk running around the city in what look like scaly panties is something else entirely.

A part of Bruce knows how it's going to end, and yet he goes racing towards it anyway. There's no major turning point in the road, just a long series of individual events. When Dick gets hurt and Bruce needs to carry him home. When Dick's costume is damaged and Bruce sees too much.

When Dick has a nightmare and Bruce holds him tight to comfort him.

It isn't innocent, even if Bruce tells himself over and over that it is, and things only spiral from there. At any point he could stop, and yet he doesn't.

He is in love with Dick in ways he shouldn't be.

For a time, Bruce is happy, but it's a false happiness. It's like eating sugar laced with poison, something sickly sweet that Bruce knows will one day kill him.

He wonders if Alfred knows. A part of him thinks that he must, because Alfred seems to know everything, but a part of him thinks that he must not. Alfred, after all, would never allow it. Alfred would intervene. In Bruce's head that becomes the new metric: to never be so bad that Alfred has to intervene.

It is just one of the ways that he convinces himself that he isn't as bad as the people he hunts down at night.

* * *

Time passes, and Dick gets older. Every passing year, the magic fades. Dick is still his partner, still his right hand in the war against crime and corruption, but he no longer interests Bruce the way he once did. Dick has other friends. He finds other things to occupy his time.

So when he nearly dies from a fall, Bruce benches him.

"In what I do, there is no place for a child," Bruce says. Dick is angry with him, but he accepts the order. He leaves that night, going out to find his own fortune... well away from Bruce.

The peace lasts only a few months. A few months where Bruce convinces himself that he's put his issue behind himself. A few months until Jason Todd comes slamming into his life. He steals Bruce's tires, and Bruce tries to do the right thing. He makes sure Jason's in a good school, but when that fails it's almost inevitable that Jason comes back to the house with him.

That night Bruce tells himself that things will be different. He tells himself that he's not going to make the same mistakes with Jason that he did with Dick.

He doesn't. If anything, he makes them even worse. It took years before he worked up to anything with Dick, but Jason simply crawls into his bed less than a week after arriving at the mansion.

Bruce should say no. Jason's a fragile child who's already seen too much. Who's already _suffered_ too much. Doing anything would be taking advantage, just like it was with Dick.

He does it anyway.

He makes all the same mistakes and then some. He puts Jason in Dick's old costume. He takes him out at night to fight crime. Bruce can't stop himself from being even more violent with the lowlifes he finds in the city.

It's been almost a year when Dick finally comes back to the house. He's heard about Jason. He's seen photos of another boy in his old costume.

The argument they have that night isn't one either of them can take back. Dick tells Bruce what he is, and Bruce can't stand to hear it. In the end, he throws Dick out and spends his time waiting for the hammer to fall. For Gordon to come. For Alfred to turn his back on him.

It never happens. Dick keeps his silence for reasons Bruce can't imagine.

Once again, things are happy. There is a new normal, even without Dick in his life. He convinces himself that he doesn't even need Dick and focuses his attention on Jason instead. Jason's all too happy to learn, and all too happy to return Bruce's affections.

Jason's becomes more violent. He seeks answers Bruce can't give him. As good as their life at home is, Jason's no longer a good partner for Batman, and Bruce benches him.

It's a mistake. It's a mistake the same way it was when he benched Dick, but it ends so much worse. Jason doesn't storm out and leave him behind, all but cutting Bruce from his life. Instead, he runs away to find his _real_ family, and dies in the process.

Bruce mourns. He feels like his heart's been ripped out of his chest, and when Dick comes back just to blame him for what happened, Bruce can't take it. Jason's death was his fault. Everything that ever happened to Dick is his fault. He's destroying the people he's supposed to be protecting.

After that, he swears it's the end. No more Robin. He won't make the same mistake again.

* * *

He makes the same mistake again.

He tries not too, but maybe not as much as he should. He tries to turn Tim down when he tells Bruce that he _needs_ a Robin.

But Tim is right: he's been more violent. He's harder on the criminals. He needs someone to balance him out, and when Tim shows off his costume (sown by Alfred, and Bruce can't decide if it's a mark in the favor of Alfred knowing or not knowing) with its full sleeves and pant legs...

Bruce wonders if maybe it won't be alright this time.

He does manage to hold out longer in the end. He tells himself that it's better, because Tim's a bit older, and because he's old enough to make his own decisions.

He isn't, but Bruce tells himself that he is anyway. The sole deviation from the norm is when Dick pulls him aside and asks if Bruce is going to be alright with having Tim around. Bruce doesn't even know what to tell him, painfully aware of the fact that _alright_ is a standard he is no longer in touch with.

He doesn't give Dick and answer, but Dick lets him go anyway. He doesn't question it, and Bruce wonders to himself if Dick really _knows_. Does Dick understand that what happened had nothing to do with him and everything to do with Bruce? Or does he lie awake at night and blame himself for what happened as if he's somehow at fault?

The guilt eats at Bruce even worse than it did with Jason. Once felt like chance. Twice was coincidence. Three times is a pattern. He can no longer pretend that what happened with Dick was chance.

He's just as bad as the men he fights as Batman, and he supposes that his only real advantage is that he's self aware about it.

Not that him being self aware protects Tim.

* * *

It's Damian who marks the beginning of the end. Damian, his son. His _blood_ son, so he can't even tell himself that it doesn't _really_ count because Dick and Tim have real families of their own, and he's just a fill-in. Damian is his real son. He's young and full of energy and sure of his place in the world.

He tries to kick Tim out of his position as Robin, taking his place from him.

He deserves it, Damian says. He's Bruce's heir.

Bruce knows he should stop it. Being Robin matters to Tim, and he's already lost so much. He should tell Damian that Tim is Robin, and that he isn't going to let someone so young go out on the streets to fight crime.

He doesn't.

A part of him feels like it's better for Tim, even if he's hurting. Better for him to be far, far away from Bruce. Better for him to go the way of Dick and find his own team who will keep him protected.

And Tim, even if Bruce doesn't want to admit it, is getting old.

Damian, though, presents a possibility: a Robin who he doesn't have to worry about. Damian's been trained, after all. He won't be in danger if he goes out with Batman.

And he's Bruce's son, so Bruce tells himself there's no risk there, either.

He's obviously not the only one with the same thought. When Dick comes to meet him, he makes a brief offhand comment to Bruce. He probably doesn't mean anything by it, but it feels like a knife in his chest.

"Good thing he's your kid, huh?"

Damian being Bruce's blood son will protect him. Damian's consistent insistence on reminding everyone that he's Bruce's _real_ son is like armor, even if he doesn't know it.

Life goes on. Bruce dies and comes back. His family tightens around him. Things are normal. He dates women he doesn't care about and tells himself that he's happy.

He feels dead inside. Every night he goes out into Gotham to make the world a better place and he stares at his _son_ and tries not to think of things.

It's almost inevitable that something breaks. It's almost inevitable that he gives in. Damian's all too willing to do whatever Bruce wants for it to not happen.

It's the final straw. It's the last step. Once he's done it, there's no going back for him, nowhere to go but down.

He does it anyway.

* * *

It takes a year and a half for things to finally break apart. A year and a half before everything is ruined.

It's Clark who comes for him in the end. He descends down in the cave like a god, his cape billowing out behind him.

"Bruce," he calls. Bruce doesn't look up, working away at his computer as Clark drops down, settling onto his feet just beside the computer. When Bruce doesn't respond, Clark continues without his input. "We need to talk. It's about Damian."

Bruce still doesn't look up.

"Damian dislocated his shoulder while he was out with Jon today. I was worried about him, so I used my X-ray vision to make sure it wasn't broken, and..." Clarks expression is so pained that Bruce doesn't know what to do with him. He looks so betrayed, and he doesn't even know the truth yet.

He doesn't even know how bad it is.

"I think Talia might be back," Clark says, because that's the only thing he can even imagine. Because _that's_ the solution that he's sure must be the truth. "Damian was covered in bruises, and..." He hesitates, breath seeming to catch. "Talia's the only one who could hurt him like that without Damian fighting back. Or maybe Ra's—"

"It was me."

It feels like the only truth he's ever spoken. In twenty years of working in and around Gotham, nothing feels as important as this.

As the truth.

"What? Bruce, there's no way that training could have left him with the injuries he had. It's just not possible. You wouldn't—"

"It was me," Bruce repeats, and a part of him feels like singing at the fact that he's said it not once, but twice. He's saying it. He's finally saying it.

"Bruce," Clark says once last time, as if expecting him to see reason and suddenly correct himself. Bruce still isn't looking at him. He doesn't trust himself to. No matter what happened, Clark is still his closest friend, and he can't stand the thought of looking at him.

Clark goes silent. Bruce knows he's thinking through all the options. He knows that Clark's going to come to the inevitable conclusion. He knows he'll think back through everything he's ever known and find all the places where he should have seen it before.

"You—" Clark starts, and then stops himself because he can't find the words.

Bruce tries to find them for him.

"It would be easier if you put me down," Bruce says. "If you tell anyone, the boys will suffer. Everyone will know what happened, and none of them want that."

He lets himself imagine it. Clark snapping his neck and saying it was an accident, or an unknown villain, or anything but the truth.

"What— Bruce, no. I'm not going to— this isn't— this isn't you."

Bruce won't look at him. He doesn't think he can. All he can think about are the boys. About the fact that none of them have said anything.

"It would be easier."

The thought that Clark might just let him go doesn't even cross his mind. Clark would never allow it. Even if Clark thinks he's mind controlled or something stupid like that, he's still treating it seriously.

"Bruce, you need help," Clark says, and Bruce feels Clark's hand land on his shoulder, giving a small squeeze. "The boys need help, and you need help, but... I—"

Once again he's at a loss for words. He doesn't know what to do, and Bruce can't blame him for that. Everything he thought he knew was just ripped away, and now he's having to reconsider everything he knows about the situation.

"The boys," Clark finally says. "All of the boys?"

Bruce nods.

"Does... does Alfred know?"

"I don't know."

Bruce isn't sure when he started crying, but he is, the tears leaking down his face. He's ruined everything. His boys—the people he was supposed to protect—will have to live with what he's done for the rest of his life. The League will be permanently damaged, in reputation if they go public, and in trust if they don't.

What he thought of as his family was a ramshackle construction, held together only by the secrets they'd kept.

And now it's collapsing.

"I can't— I can't believe this, Bruce. You were the best of us. You're a _hero._ How could you?"

Bruce doesn't know the answer, and he doesn't think he ever will. He's lost track of the point where everything started to go wrong. Once upon a time, he'd have said it started going wrong from the moment he was born, but now he knows better.

The problem wasn't how he was. The problem was the choices he made and the damage he inflicted on the people he was supposed to care for.

There's no coming back from that for him.


End file.
